Lafesta Baseball Exchange Holds Pasta Dinner on June 28

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The LaFesta Baseball Exchange, a North Adams youth baseball staple, holds its Pasta & Meatballs Dinner on Thursday, June 28, to fundraise for their annual baseball exchange series between North Adams and the North End of Boston.

In its 28th season, the LaFesta Baseball Exchange celebrates its 100th game played this year. Several hundreds of kids from across the Northern Berkshires and the North End of Boston have participated in the exchange, enjoying America’s pastime whilst exploring what the other team’s hometown has to offer.

The dinner, sponsored by the Community Italian American Organization of the Berkshires, will take place at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Parish Center on Thursday, June 28, from 4-7 p.m. The $10 tickets for the dinner include the pasta and meatballs, a salad, and a beverage. There will also be home-made dessert available for purchase.

Tickets for the dinner can be purchased for either a LaFesta baseball player or at the door the night of the dinner. For more details, head to http://www.facebook.com/LaFestaBaseballExchange.

North Adams' Route 2 Study Looks at 'Repair, Replace and Remove'

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
06:02PM / Monday, April 07, 2025

Attendees make comments and use stickers to indicate their thoughts on the priorities for each design.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Nearly 70 residents attended a presentation on Saturday morning on how to stitch back together the asphalt desert created by the Central Artery project.

 

Of the three options proposed — repair, replace or restore — the favored option was to eliminating the massive overpass, redirect traffic up West Main and recreate a semblance of 1960s North Adams.

 

"How do we right size North Adams, perhaps recapture a sense of what was lost here with urban renewal, and use that as a guide as we begin to look forward?" said Chris Reed, director of Stoss Landscape Urbanism, the project's designer.

 

"What do we want to see? Active street life and place-making. This makes for good community, a mixed-use downtown with housing, with people living here ... And a district grounded in arts and culture."

 

The concepts for dealing with the crumbling bridge and the roads and parking lots around it were built from input from community sessions last year.

 

The city partnered with Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art for the Reconnecting Communities Pilot Program and was the only city in Massachusetts selected. The project received $750,000 in grant funding to explore ways to reconnect what Reed described as disconnected "islands of activity" created by the infrastructure projects. 

 

"When urban renewal was first introduced, it dramatically reshaped North Adams, displacing entire neighborhoods, disrupting street networks and fracturing the sense of community that once connected us," said Mayor Jennifer Macksey. "This grant gives us the chance to begin to heal that disruption."